The Washington critic., 1887-12-31
HINTS FOR NEW YEAR.
An Earnest Plea for Reform in Fem.
inine Dress.
GAIL HAMILToN's OPINION.
How Natural Costumes Would Tend
to Make Everybody Happier.

AT this hour, when the political atten-
tion of two hemispheres is riveted upon
the varying fortunes Of a suit of clothes,
when the imperial power of Great
Britain is devoted to stealing the livery
of heaven to serve the devil in, it can
not be said that the question of clothes
is insignificant.
We look In another quarter-toward
the new realm of Japan, rising out of
the mists of the past and claiming
place among modern civilizations and
u chief phase of the movement is the
decision Of the Japanese women to
adopt the European dress. A move
ment among European women to adopt
the japanese dress would be very much
more to my purpose, but the signif-
canoe of
THE JAPANESE REVOLUTION
cannot be mistaken. The Hawaiian
Queen has lately introduced at the
Court of st. James, not the native dress
Of Oahu, but the compromise garb be-
tween hcathcndom and Christendom,
the flowing holokee, known to the pri-
vacy of homes and even in some of our
statute books as the Mother Hubbard.
Kindly willing to sacrifice herself in the
black satin corsage rs a tribute to Chris
tianity, Kapiolani, we are told, was
urged by her sister Victoria, to appear
at the highest festivities in the charac-
teristic holokee, giving it thereby the
hand and seal of English royalty. When
we remember that the burden Of dress
has been too great for the gentle island
ers, and one reason of their decline and
fall is alleged to be the introduction of
clothes by the missionaries, it will
readily be seen that we enter upon no
trivial discussion when we debate
THE QUESTION OF DRESS.
The drama brings the matter before
us in some .edifying aspects. We have
actresses and milliners' "forms." Ellen
Terry is not woman of gowns. At the
first glimpse her dress is seen to be
loose, fitting not at all, careless dra-
perry, sometimes without folds, always
without fashion, and that is the last you
see of it. The genius of the woman
clothes her with light and grace.
Angular figure, clumsy garb, the weari-
ness of years and woes, all vanish, and
appear only youth, innocence, glad
ness, grief, in radiant, all-compelling
presentation.
need not name the women who have
degraded the art of drama by making il
the art of dress. Dress hath its victo.
ries, perhaps no less renowned than the
stage, but they are not the same. The
woman who is willing to make herself q
stage figure for Worth to hang his
triumphs on, whose costumes are gilt.
tering and splendid advertisements
may be doing good work, but it is moi
tho field of dramatic art. She is helping
out the dressmakers. She is democra
cising that expensive aristocrat and
autocrat, the English French man
milliner. Women who cannot afford
his work can study it on the stage figure
and reproduce it in thousand varia
tions. 1t is convenient, easy, cheap, but
it is not histrionic.
NEEDED IMPROVEMENTS.
What it behooves us to inquire /.
whether out Of all these contradictions
combinations, hints, women may no
evolve some permanent improvement il
the costume of civilization. The dres.
of the woman Of to-day is vastly better
than dress has sometimes been, but alsC
vastly worse. 1t is intensely uncom
Portable and is not wholly beautiful
The street dress is short, and to that ex
tent convenient. The evening dress i.
long and plain, and to that extent beau
tiful. But the bunchy tournure is de-
forming, heavy, hampering, ridiculous
the pinched waist is distressing.
Let us be frank | admit that tn,
pinched waist is q necessity. l fight II,
windmills. So long as we must hav
the present style of dress we must hav
the present style of pinch. A com
Portable gown of the nineteenth cen
tury looks clumsy and countryfied.
is countryfied. There are no countr,
dressinakers; there are few city dress
makers who can give the curved an,
slender grace which the modern gar
requires for its perfection. When we d
behold, We can but admire.
sEcoND-RATE DREssMAKERs.
But the great mass OF women are mad
up by the second-rate mass of dress
makers, and the result is saddenine
They pinch and pull through all tn
martyrdoms, yet never wear the aureole
No suffering blurs the square, straight
awkward lines that reveal the preRtic
hand, and so much agony runs t
waste.
Abstracting, then, this absolute failur
of the great majority, we have only I,
measure against it the short rapture q
the few who know themselves to hav
come out faultless from the maste
hand. I say short rapture, for evei
these masterpieces must have thei
hours of wearincss, not to say disgust
hours when their iron-moulded gown
must seem hollow, or rather com
pact, mockcry; hours when the mo
mentary consciousness of exquisite grac,
and perfect outline might be well ex
changed for an unimpeded breath, 70
, a released and ransomed muscle. Who
ever has seen one of these slender an,
unwrinkled maidens make a stiff, side
wise, ramrod lurch after a stray tenni
ball need not have wept for more world
,, to conquer. A girl in her unyieldin
suit of armor, boy in one long, 1.-THE lin
, of Jersey hannel-and we talk of tn
equality of the sexes!
GRACE AND FREEDOM.
Has the nineteenth century, has tn
Caucasian blood no power to redeem il
, self from thrall, to lend itself to grac
and freedom? We talk of Paganism
, and the Greek women made themselve
such models of loveliness that the n,
Of all the ages since has never SUI
+ planted them. Paganism and tn
. Chinese women only bandage their feet
while Christian women bandage wit
| puunlIv unrplpntiuu salf-sa prifica tho "